


you hate the name junior

by VerdantMoth



Category: Marvel
Genre: Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Mentions of Morgan Stark - Freeform, Names, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Feels, mentions of Pepper Pots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 06:35:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20287000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: You hate the name Junior, because when he said it, he almost looked proud.





	you hate the name junior

You have learned that drunk comes with levels; flushed cheeks and bright eyes and smiles like the goddamned sun, faint blush and glistening lashes and a melancholy so deep the poets wrote it, ruddy neck and blazing eyes and fist that just don’t stop. 

Tipsy, happy, sad, angry, you’ve seen them all, felt them all against your cheek. 

He spits your name like it’s milk gone sour, like he didn’t choose the letters, the order, and give you a label. 

_ Bastard _ , he screams in your face, breath $400 a glass and suit rumpled. 

You knew better than to pick the scarlet tie but how else were you to stitch your sins to your breast. 

_ Anthony, _ he almost sobs, breath honey sweet and whiskey spicy. 

You pluck the glass from his hands, push them away from your face. Tomorrow he won’t remember this fight, and he’ll ask you where you’re mother has gone. 

Tomorrow, the hand won’t be gentle against your chin. 

_ Tony, _ he says, warning in his voice and grin shark stretched and hungry. You aren’t wrong, in your predictions. Whatever he thinks of you, whatever insane fantasies he’s built about the boy he’s raised, you are your father’s son and you have studied the numbers and the projections. 

This investment is worth arguing with him in the meeting he forced you into. 

It’s worth the poisoned-candy way he says your nickname, condescension and patronization. 

You aren’t entirely sure it’s worth the glass bottle slung at your head, or the twenty-three stitches he makes you pay for. 

_ Junior _ , he says to the crowd, eyes bright and wine drunk.  _ My boy, look what he’s accomplished _ , he tells the cameras and the investors. His grip, bruising on your shoulders, is barely recognizable in the footage played on tv. But his eyes, they look so pleased, you almost buy into the lie. 

The investments were worth it. You were right. And he hates that you were right. 

-

He calls you  _ Anthony, _ and a bastard, and  _ Lazy _ and  _ Tony,  _ spits the names at you like roaches from his teeth. He is never happy, never able to be pleased. 

You’ve stopped trying, stopped responding. Sometimes a stranger calling you on the street is more familiar than your father’s voice. 

And then you become IronMan, you become Tony Stark, not just Tony. 

You learn to hide behind these names, to smile, breath $400 an exhale and eyes bright even when you're dead inside. 

You don’t have to think about the names you hate. 

No one calls you Anthony, labels you Lazy. They call you bastard, but you  _ earn _ that name. 

And then she tells you she’s pregnant and she wants to talk about names. 

_ If we call him Anthony Stark, he can go by Junior.  _

You clench your teeth, because you don’t know how to tell her. 

You hate the name  _ Junior _ , because when he said it, he almost looked proud. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter. She gives birth to a  _ daughter,  _ and you are relieved the Stark men are dying out. You name her Morgan, and she is beautiful and perfect and when you say her name, when you call her anything, it is only with pride, love, and adoration. 

  
  
  



End file.
